Eerie New England

Is it the rustling of the leaves or the rustling of footsteps you hear beside you as you walk through that known, haunted graveyard. That's right folks! Here are a few documented cemeteries here in new England that have been known to harbor entities that are not only verifiable, but unexplained. Talk a stroll with me as well take a hesitant glance at two graves that harbor spectral phenomena that have intrigued us for years.

Midnight Mary
Evergreen Cemetery
769 Ella Grasso Boulevard
New Haven, Connecticut

Mary E. hart was born in New Haven and lived on Winthrop Avenue. She worked as a seamstress, a machine stitcher, and corset maker. In her 47th year of age, she suffered what was then called an "applexy", what today is known as a stroke or cerebral embolism.
Her family presumed she had died and they buried her that afternoon. Mary's sister awoke at midnight after having a terrible nightmare in which she had heard Mary screaming in the grave. She alerted the rest of the family. Mary's coffin was disinterred, and when they opened the lid. poor Mary was truly dead. Evidently, she had been buried alive. Her bloodied fingers, torn fingernails and the scratches on the inside of the coffin, as well as her terrified grimace revealed her gruesome fate. She [probably died of fright.
Her large, pink granite stone reads: "The people shall be troubled and midnight and pass away" in ominous black letters over the rest of her epitaph:L"At high noon just from, and about to renew her daily work, in her full strength of body and mind Mary E. Hart having fallen prostrate remained unconscious, until she died at midnight, October 15. 1872. Born December 16, 1824."
This gave birth to the legend of Midnight Mary. According to the stories, Mary's ghost is a "lady in white", a nocturnal hitchhiker on Winthrop
Avenue, who suddenly vanishes before reaching her destination. In another urban legend, Mary was a witch with a cursed grave. Brave young souls often died after staying the night at her gravesite.
for well over a century, people have been spooked by the peculiar phrase on her grave. What did it mean? Was it some sort of warning or curse?
Not at all. Those familiar with scripture might recognize the passage from the Old Testament, Job 34:20.


Evergreen Cemetery
Town Hill Road
New Haven, Vermont

Being buried alive was real fear in the old days. A famous grave in Vermont testifies to this dreadful plight. It is known as "the grave with a window."
Dr. Timothy Clark Smith was born on June 14, 1821 at Monkton, Vermont./ He worked as a clerk for the U.S. Dept. of Treasury. After earning a medical degree in 1855, he became a staff surgeon in the Russian Army. Dr. Smith also served as U.S. Consul in Russia.
Dr. Smith passed away just after breakfast(not on Halloween according to the legend)but on Saturday, February 25, 1893 at the Logan House hotel in Middlebury.
Because of his fear of premature burial, Dr. Smith was buried in a special crypt at Evergreen Cemetery. His son, Harrison, designed the two-room crypt. Dr. Smith's coffin was fitted with a window at eye level protected by a cement shaft and a 14-inch plate of thick glass.
According to the stories, in earlier times it was possible to peer down into the shaft and view Dr. Smith's remains. Allegedly, his coffin was outfitted with a hammer and chisel so he could escape from it on his own if he had to. Some say he was buried with a bell to ring and alert others if he awoke. Stairs(now capped) led down into the vault. Some say low moans come from his burial site. You be the judge.